Change In Pace
by Summoner Lenne10
Summary: Nothing like a good sleep-deprived haze to awaken you to the facts of life. At 1:31 A.M. on October 10th Dora Tonks finds out one of the most important facts of her life. And promptly freaks out. And trips, and passes out. As is life. OOTP-era, R/T


1A/N: This is rather like my "Awfully Silly" little ficlet. It's not particularly important, its not particularly the best thing I've ever written. There's no great point to it- what I do rather strive for in my writing. But I rather like it all the same, so here's to hoping you will also.

Also, in the editing process it became about twice as long. I don't know if this is bad or not- if it seems terribly lengthy, tell me and I'll go and edit it a bit. Also, if anyone could Britpick I'd be thankful.

**Change in Pace**

Tonks had realized perhaps one of the most important facts of her life at 1:31 in the bloody morning on October 10th of 1995.

The reason she knew the date and time wasthe day had been the day after her inspection at the Ministry after a year of being an auror. She had studied long and hard for it, and had been fretting for weeks on whether they would find her skills up to part (It was no secret that her 'family connections' had always been frowned on in the Ministry, and with the current climate Fudge was as quick to dismiss Dumbledore lovers as anyone with connections to dark families, except, of course, The Malfoys, which was most ridiculous of all. She of course was both, though Fudge knew not a wiff of the former, and it would have to stay that way if she intended on keeping her job.) She knew the time because she had received perhaps an hour of sleep over twenty hours before thanks to a Ministry watch shift on Sunday the 8th and had been flitting in and out of consciousness, watching the clock above Remus' head and ideally contemplating the fact that her inspection had, of course, been on a bloody _Monday_.

She usually did pay acute attention during meetings- but the day had been entirely too tiring, what with Kissing Ministry Arse left and right so she would not loose her job and acting (fabulously, but repulsively) to prove that she thought Dumbledore was an old crack-pot, because she was of course drilled on the fact. So after paying as close of attention as she could for twenty minutes or so and getting the gist of it being mostly repeats of everything they already knew- Voldemort would try and attack the Ministry and definitely through Harry if he could manage it, Fudge was being a git, she allowed herself the luxury of zoning out. Honestly, Kingsley was currently going over reports form the auror department and information on Sirius's hunt, which, _really_, she all knew already, so she didn't _need_ to pay too close to attention. She could almost repeat it all in her sleep by now anyway.

She couldn't fall asleep, but her mind was half there, flitting in and out of consciousness, almost about to enter a lucid dream-like state. She had focused intently on the old-fashioned, miniature grandfather clock propped on the wall, trying to remember what all those dials and turns meant, and then glanced down at the man beneath the contraption.

Remus looked, for all the world, just as tired as she felt. The full moon had been the day before, on Sunday night when she had been watching the Department actually, and he was here despite the Older's general consecutive demands that he needed to _sleep_. His thick hair was dis-arranged and rumpled- it almost looked as if it belonged on the head of a Potter- and the persistent purple bags under his eyes were more vividly predominant than usual. His eyes were sharp though; alert, and deeply troubled, his elegant mouth curved downward into a frown.

Shame, really. He had a perfectly lovely smile. Actually, one of the most wonderful smiles she had ever witnessed. It was slightly crooked and his eyes would crinkle up slightly and slightly glow and his teeth would shine brightly (he really did have very white teeth) and his lips would look so wonderfully soft and-

His frown deepened at something that was said, and it hurt Tonks, somewhat, even if she completely missed whatever it _was_ that was said. She didn't want to see him frown. She wanted to see him smile that wonderful smile, as he told her wonderful stories of adolescent mis-adventures and made her laugh until she was curled up on the floor, absolutely helpless with giggles, and her stomach tingle as if she had swallowed a whole colony of butterflies. She wanted to brush his bangs back from his forehead, and stare into those lovely, tired eyes of his, and kiss away his sadness and-

"TONKS!"

She jumped up, banging her elbows against the ancient kitchen table. "Wah- what, I'm awake!" She said, trying her best to focus on Moody, who was glaring at her, while vaguely rubbing her elbows at the pain blossoming in them- _Owwww_.

"What was the last thing we were taking about?" Moody growled at her, focusing both of his eyes on her in his version of a glare. It was a sign of her fatigue that it was mildly disturbing to her- she had long since gotten accustomed to his scarred and grotesque face.

"... Kiss?" She supplied, it being the first (and currently, only) thing her mind ran across.

"Bloody hell woman- _what_?" Moody growled, "Where the bloody hell _is_ your mind right now? This is the bloody Order of the Phoenix! Not some ladies gossip group! I was _saying_ the meetings over, unless you have anything to add?" He raised what was left of an eyebrow at her while the entire table watched her utterly bemused.

Tonks blinked confused at him, and glanced at Remus who was also staring at her quizzically, his eyebrow propped up in a silent question, and suddenly understanding launched at her in a split second from whichever dusty corner of Grimmauld Place it had been hiding.

She had just been contemplating kissing Remus Lupin.

And how nice his smile looked.

And how handsome he looked.

And-

_Oh bloody hell._

She sat upright, gripping the table in white-clenched knuckles, probably looking for all the world like a deer in the bloody headlights. She knew her eyes were far too large and round at the moment anyway, but she couldn't seem to remember how to blink.

"I... I need to get to sleep." She said, swaying unsteadily on her feet. "Uh- meeting adjourned. I think. If I have the authority to say that. Umm, Sirius, can I-"

"Go ahead." he said, shooing her request off, "You practically live in that room anyway."

She rushed upstairs to her designated room, only tripping three times along the way (she considered simply apparating, but in her present condition, it _didn't_ seem to be the best of ideas- she didn't want to splinch herself). And she only almost collapsed to sleep on one of the resulting face-plants once on her way up. She thought this was a pretty good accomplishments, since she would have tripped at least once completely well rested anyway, and she was known for on occasion not reaching her designated area of sleep before she passed out. Rather annoying habit...

Tonks woke up, feeling the light slate in through the window on her face. It had a pleasant feel, and seemed to be of a noon-ish quality. She felt comfortably well-rested and warm, as if she had just woken up from some very happy and very deep dreams she could not particularly recall at the moment. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt 'well-rested' but she knew it, at the very least, had not been anytime in the past few months, or perhaps years honestly. She furrowed her currently blond eyebrows, trying to remember what sort of dreams could leave her feeling this warm. She could sense them right beneath the surface. At the same time, there was something else alluding her memory, something from the previous night-

"_Grimmauld Place. Fancying Remus. Nearly passing out."_ Her mind supplied. She blinked a few time trying to process these words.

And then it all came flooding back to her.

She grabbed the pillow from behind her where she had collapsed onto the bed fully clothed the previous night and stuffed it against her face, screaming deeply into it's dusty fabric. This was not the smartest of ideas with anything concerning Number Twelve Grimmauld Place- the room was fairly well vaccinated and sterilized, but not to the point of stuffing one's face in a possibly lethal pillow- but she did not contemplate that now. She remembered her dream now, of _course_. It involved a certain ex professor and her talking comfortably, and lounging together peacefully, as his arm rested comfortably on her shoulder, and then he had kissed her and he had smiled that crooked smile she so loved against her lips as his tongue teased her's and-

_Why could she bloody remember that all _that_ vividly? It was a bloody dream!_

Right? ...

Right. Definitely. No matter what else, that had _not_ happened... yet?

She sat there, eyes unfocused, trying to grasp hold of this situation. All right, no reason to act like a schoolgirl, she was an adult. A respected, (sort of) well educated, responsible adult. She had fancied men before. She had dated men before. This was perfectly, acceptably, _normal._

... Except no, no, it really, really _wasn't_.

Oh dear _God_.

Like all of those times that she had teased him mercilessly. She had thought it was so adorable to see him blush, and she'd tease him about how handsome he was and how many girls must have swooned over him and how besotted she was with him, except now she apparently _was_ besotted with him and how was she supposed to rationalize _that_? What was she supposed to do _now_?

She tried to calm herself down. All part of life now, just another part to her insane, mixed up- _Oh dear lord she fancied Remus bloody _Lupin_-_

A knock sounded at the door and she all but yelped, startled so badly she somehow threw herself off the bed and onto the floor. Which was some sort of new record for her she did ideally notice- who before had fallen off their _bed_?

"Come in." She muttered between grit teeth, trying to guide herself back to bed as cautiously as possible.

The door tentatively opened and Remus stepped through, an awkward smile on his face. She wondered how she had never, truly, noticed just how handsome he was before- his hair was greying, and he had a few lines along his forehead and at the corners of his mouth and eyes but they did nothing to subtract from the sharp cheekbones and the clear blue eyes. It certainly was a very aesthetically pleasing face, and honestly she could probably stare at it all day and-

_She was checking out Remus bloody Lupin! _And she needed to get under control-_ RIGHT THEN_- because this man was still her -_colleague_-, sort of, fighters together in the secret battle against You-Know-Who anyway, and-

"Sorry if I startled you." He said, creeping into the room. "I just wanted to see if you were well."

In that moment the awkwardness faded away instantously actually surprised her deeply, since she had a long history of being a blubbering idiot around boys she fancied. He was still Remus. He was wonderful, brilliant, caring Remus. And she just, suddenly, cared about him a lot more- though, she thought, it was probably there all along, just buried where she thought it didn't exist- but it did. It always did. From that first moment when she tripped over the bloody troll leg into his arms for the very first time.

She didn't want that ending anytime soon.

"Oh, I'm fine, startled myself." She muttered darkly as she checked her left side- the one she had _so_ spectacularly fell on- for bruises and saw a particularly nasty one forming all along her side from her hip to her breast. "Oh, bloody bugger-"

She grabbed her wand from the bedside table (rotting-away-ancient-excuse-for-furniture-that-was-barely-still-holding-together more like) tentatively, she was good with breaks and fractures and even marginally all right at deep slashes but bruises had always boggled her. She didn't know how to stem the bleeding of the intricate map of capillaries beneath the skin and she stared at it perplexed, biting her lip. ... How did she fall of the bloody _bed_ anyway? It was the _bed!_

"I can fix that for you if you want." Remus said, smiling at her hesitantly again. She smiled back at him with a good deal of relief.

"Oh, please do. I really don't feel like walking around all day injured and limping about." She smiled at him, and he smiled back at her, less tentative and more open now, his eyes catching in the light and his mouth quirking up ever-so-slightly lopsided. Her stomach fluttered pleasantly. His eyes had this very annoyingly breathtaking quality about them and it, well, didn't leave her thinking completely coherently.

"Lie on the bed." he instructed and she did so, pushing down _any_ inappropriate thoughts that could come out of his words, (and rather effectively as well! She actually was rather proud of herself for not thinking about him saying those words, in other situations, with his voice deliberately huskier and his eyes- ... Aww. Shite.) hiking her shirt up over her ribs, though her heart quickened. He carefully prodded her bruised skin- she winced- and cast a soothing numbing charm over the area. A cool numbness spread over it, and he then proceeded to the devilishly tricky business of repairing burst capillaries beneath her skin with a series of mild, warming charms cast above her. He could be charming her to float for all the discomfort she felt. Her body was very keenly aware of the heat radiating off his own, only a few inches away from her... After he was done, her carefully prodded the skin again after releasing the numbing spell. She hastily tried to morph her rapidly reddening face back to its usual pale shade- blast it for making blushes _so_ noticeable, though she _was_ luckily a metamorphagus, while it was still hidden in the folds on the bed sheets and thanked the Gods that, for once, _something_ had gone right. She could feel her face wasn't purple at any rate.

"Does that feel any better?" He asked her, and she nodded minutely, honestly paying keener attention to the feel of his hand on her skin than anything else, which had the unfortunate side effect of making concentrating on anything else _rather_ difficult.

His finger splayed along her side, drumming a light rhythm. She was half tempted to ask him if he felt like giving her a massage, though honestly even _she_ was not _that_ forward. Though the idea of his hands soothing out the kinks (and _oh_ were there a lot of them, there _always_ were) in her neck and back was absolutely _beyond_ wonderful. Fantastic. Oh dear _god_, she was going to fantasize about that now wasn't she? About his strong, warm, veined hands kneading into her neck and back and what the utter _feel_ of it would be and-

He seemed to realize what he was doing and quickly withdrew his hand, murmuring an awkward, "sorry"and looked away ashamed. She shook her head at him as much as herself, trying desperately to clear her head.

"Silly Lupin.' She muttered, scooting up next to him and giving him a quick hug around the shoulders, the butterflies and pleasant daydreams not necessarily disappearing or even lessening- not at all- but suddenly they were a _lot_ more manageable under present circumstances and easier to shuffle off into some distant corner of her mind, to be contemplated over later when circumstances allowed them better. Like the reality of being in a dirty Grimmauld Place bedroom at the moment. _Not_ the most ideal location for a shag- if a shag was even in the question. The mere thought of it would ruin _all_ of her quickly-gained composure. So she didn't think about it.

For now, anyway.

"Apologizing when he's doing the world a round of good-" She continued on, then stopped, her eyes growing wide, "OH SHITE! I HAVE A SHIFT RIGHT NOW!"

She made to jump up but Remus held her down, laughing genially at her. "The lack of coherency that is your mind will never stop to amaze me Nymphadora. Kingsley had Dawlish cover for you. Don't think he's very happy about it from the way the floo sounded, but he thought you needed the day off and I insisted. You seemed completely gone in your own little world last night."

She looked away quickly, trying to cover up her second blush in under five minutes with another morph as she muttered to not call her bloody Nymphadora and to shove it. She remembered suddenly exactly _why_ she had been so 'gone in her own little world' last night, and it reminded her of how utterly _odd_ this entire situation was.

"Yes, well, that's kind of him, but you don't need to coddle me..." she muttered awkwardly, crossing her arms.

He rolled his eyes at the baby comment, "I believe, my dear, that it is hardly coddling to make sure you get some sleep, it's a common courtesy" She gave him a mock glare as an answer, but was unable to muster any real emotion behind it.

"And honestly Nymphadora-" he said, poking her teasingly in her now healed side, "What would you ever do by yourself? Sleeping in your clothes! That's not particularly healthy or hygienic, you are aware of?" He pointed to her pair of tattered, patched jeans she had been honestly wearing for _far_ too long by now.

"I could barely get up the steps!" She said pseudo-angrily, "Let alone conjure some nightie. Thugh if you want, _just_ for you, I'll get something especially lacy _right_ now." She winked at him, thankful that they were settling into their typical routine of mock-flirting and teasing (except was it real flirting now? She honestly would never have the guts to change into a nightie, but at the same time, perhaps it had been real all along) and then added as an afterthought, "And that's the second time in under five minutes you've called me Nymphadora! You should be submitted to capital punishment you know!" She scrunched up her eyes into another fake glare, and tapped her wand threateningly against her thigh.

He burst out laughing, glancing sideways at her, examining her quizzically with his wonderful eyes (though starting to turn a slight shade of red himself), and she felt her glare melt off her face as she fell into helpless giggles herself, thinking again about how it was so _easy_ to fall back into their established routine, just with the change that, really, she wanted nothing more for him to go and tuck her hair behind her ear and caress her cheek while he leaned down to kiss her-

She blinked and shook her head minutely. Daydreaming when the man of said daydreams was a foot away from her was _not_ the best of ideas. Especially when it was also the second or third time- if not more- she had done so in under five minutes (she was as bad as he was with saying her blasted name!) He once again stared at her quizzically once his laughs subsided.

"What?" he asked, she shook her head.

"Nothing. I think I need some of Molly's cooking." She stood up. Remus followed her example, but she noticed that his movements were slower than they should have been, that he had to grip the bed to help pull himself up.

"And _you_!" She screeched, turning on him angrily as he finally stood up. "Going on about me sleeping in my clothes- it's barely a day past the full moon!"

"Honestly, I'm perfectly fi-" He began to argue, but she placed her finger against his lips, effectively ending his attempt at a rebuke.

"Nuh-uh. We are going downstairs, and I am making you a painkilling potion while the stew from last night boils, all right?" She offered her shoulder to him, narrowing her eyes at him in a manner that said quiet simply- _Try and argue with this one_.

He looked at her desperately for a few minutes, sighed resignedly, and hobbled over, draping his arm over her offered shoulder as she helped lead him out the door.

It was one part of her dream, anyway. His arm around her shoulder, wonderfully familiar, trusting her completely to lean on her. And the butterflies were _certainly_ there.

As they hopped down the Grimmauld Place staircase together to try and reach the basement she took a peak at his wonderful face. It was lined yes, and so tired, but she had seen his features change and become young, seen his eyes sparkle when he looked at her.

She smiled to herself. Maybe this change in direction wouldn't be so awkward after all.

Though, of course, a moment after she thought this she misjudged the distance between two steps, effectively missing one altogether and sending them both hurtling down the stairs in a loud clatter, awakening Mrs. Black's portrait with renewed howls.

As was life.


End file.
